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Politics will be more divided, more localist and more socialist under the next generation

Sherelle Jacobs

11 September 2018 • 6:00 AM

If “winter is coming” for the establishment then it will be down to the snowflakes

British politics is undergoing a metamorphosis: a new era has split through the skin of the old order, and the damage is irreversible. Centrist technocrats (who spent their working lives “revisiting the data” rather than “making mistakes”) have a hard time understanding this. Many think we are just going through a blip. They are convinced that us “risk-averse” millennials will restore order when demographic shifts make them the voting majority, by reversing Brexit and electing “rational” politicians.

But in the West Midlands’ Black Country, where my own roots lie, I’ve seen hints of a different possibility. It is the millennials, I believe, who will really disrupt the system.

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If “winter is coming” for the establishment then it will be down to the snowflakes

British politics is undergoing a metamorphosis: a new era has split through the skin of the old order, and the damage is irreversible. Centrist technocrats (who spent their working lives “revisiting the data” rather than “making mistakes”) have a hard time understanding this. Many think we are just going through a blip. They are convinced that us “risk-averse” millennials will restore order when demographic shifts make them the voting majority, by reversing Brexit and electing “rational” politicians.

But in the West Midlands’ Black Country, where my own roots lie, I’ve seen hints of a different possibility. It is the millennials, I believe, who will really disrupt the system.

Like other areas of the country, many young people in what used to be one of England’s biggest manufacturing regions voted Remain. But ask them if they’d take the train down to London to protest for a second referendum, and they laugh in your face.

Instead the most civically engaged young Black Country folk that I know are busy trying to revive neighbourhoods that are fast fading to little more than a memory. Raised on their grandparents’ stories of errands to the butchers and herbal “sucks” from the sweet shop, they are building artisanal small businesses and campaigning for schools to teach the local dialect. It is the Black Country flag, knotted with chains to signify the region’s metalworking history, not the EU’s stars, that flaps in the wind on their motorbikes.

On the surface, this “turning inwards” may seem surprising. Us millennials were raised to be cosmopolitan Europhiles; as teens, we dabbled in Mandarin and binged on American television. In our Steinbeck-steeped English classes, “freedom” was a Cadillac’s rattle across a borderless infinitum.

But the low youth turnout at the referendum betrays the fact that many young people are not as enthusiastic about the EU project – and indeed the globalist philosophy that underpins it – as rhetoric from the Remain camp suggests.

Maybe it’s because multilateralism has had such a bad run in recent years, from the failure to fix Greece to the UN’s paper-shuffling response to the Rwandas and Syrias. Perhaps scavenging for our first jobs in the wreckage of the financial crisis, has killed some of the love for hyperconnected global systems.

Still, patriotism among the younger generation is equally lacking. All the history lessons about Hitler put many off nationalism early in life. Maybe that’s why they don’t get excited about talk of “global Britain” striking post-Brexit trade deals. This is, of course, frustrating for the Brexiteers.

Instead, millennials, deep down, are localists. Priced out of London, steadily liberated by flexi-working, and craving “realness” in a fragmented, social media-driven world, young people are turning their backs on the capital and building new communities, from Bristol to Margate - and, yes, in the graveyards of industry like the Black Country too.

Youth localism is on the rise across the country, from Cumbrian Young Farmers Clubs running dialect competitions, and millennial Mancunians volunteering in neighbourhood food banks to young people in the East of England campaigning for more parks. According to one study, 16 to 24-year-old are more likely to want to get involved in their local communities than over-55s.

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It’s a trend that can only be intensified by the move towards so-called “reverse globalisation” (which will change our lives just as much as Brexit): the rise of renewable energy could make us less reliant on fossil fuels from volatile countries, moving us away from large power stations to local production. 3D printing and lab-grown meat could reduce the need for imports of countless goods. Virtual Reality may render international business travel and sprawling head offices in major cities unnecessary, as people become able to execute almost any collaborative work task from home.

This all makes a return to centrist, “consensual” politics less likely. Opposition to the overcentralisation of Britain and London’s cultural supremacy will only become more fierce among the millennials.

Perhaps the next generation will, thus, split into two groups: The first will embrace a metropolitan thought system that champions trigger warning activism, ethnic and gender quotas in the workplace, and stripping the English language of all politically incorrect impurities. Some will pick this group out of genuine passion; others to look more sophisticated in a world where everybody has a degree.

Another group among the next generation are likely to fiercely counter this, partly by advocating such regional devolution as the likes of Andy Burnham is proposing for the North, post-Brexit. Perhaps they will include the alumnae of the free speech societies that started popping up across university campuses. Perhaps they will also include the young white males who are already being passed over for promotions. Perhaps they will include millennials outside the London bubble, whom metropolitans will dismiss as “inward looking”.

Finally, there is one way in which the next generation could prove more radical – and potentially more dangerous – than the baby boomers. The next generation are deeply ambivalent about capitalism: many of them will never get onto the housing ladder at all, or fully pay off their student loans. A curious sympathy for hardcore socialism is taking root among thirty-somethings. Open reliance on the bank of mum and dad has made dependency culture socially acceptable in a way it just wasn't 30 years ago. There is, thus, a serious possibility that we have not reached peak Corbyn, but rather he is slightly ahead of his time.

Some people say Britain is experiencing one final, nihilistic howl of destruction from the rebellious baby boomers. This is incorrect. If “winter is coming” for the establishment then it will ultimately be down to the snowflakes. Though their predecessors who started the revolution may not like all the results.